News

Derek Falls, manager at Weekends on the Pearl Street Mall, washes a drawing of a swastika off the store's front display window Jan. 7. Weekends was one of at least three stores to be tagged with swastikas. (Mitchell Byars/Daily Camera)

A vandal on the Pearl Street Mall tagged at least three stores sometime late Monday night or early Tuesday morning, drawing swastikas on the windows of those businesses.

Employees confirmed the swastikas -- which appear to have been drawn by the same person -- appeared on windows at Lindsay's Boulder Deli at Haagen-Dazs, 1148 Pearl St.; Weekends, 1200 Pearl St.; and Installation, 1955 Broadway.

Installation and Lindsay's Deli are right next to each other on the west side of Broadway on the walking portion of the mall, while Weekends is on the east side of Broadway directly across from the other two stores.

Travis Towe, the manager at Installation, said there was no question what the drawing was when he saw it.

"It was definitely a swastika," he said.

The drawings appeared to have been made with some sort of grease pen or crayon that Towe was able to scrape off the window with a razor.

Derek Falls, the manager at Weekends, also was outside his store's front window with a bucket and rag Tuesday trying to get rid of the drawing.

"It was just enough to make it a pain to clean off," he said.

While Falls and Towe said the drawings were just an inconvenience to clean, for Lindsay Shaw -- the owner of Lindsay's Deli -- it was much more.

Shaw is Jewish, and said it was upsetting to see.

"I felt violated and sad," she said. "I really took it to heart."

Shaw didn't know whether the drawing was targeted at her because she is Jewish. She said the deli has seen some people etch things into the windows, but never anything like this.

None of the three businesses reported the incident to police.

Boulder police spokeswoman Kim Kobel said Tuesday that no businesses filed any complaints Tuesday about tagging on Pearl Street.

"It just washed off, so I didn't call police," Shaw said, but added that it still upset her. "It made me uncomfortable."

Article Comments

We reserve the right to remove any comment that violates our ground rules, is spammy, NSFW, defamatory, rude, reckless to the community, etc.

We expect everyone to be respectful of other commenters. It's fine to have differences of opinion, but there's no need to act like a jerk.

Use your own words (don't copy and paste from elsewhere), be honest and don't pretend to be someone (or something) you're not.

Our commenting section is self-policing, so if you see a comment that violates our ground rules, flag it (mouse over to the far right of the commenter's name until you see the flag symbol and click that), then we'll review it.

Boulder is pretty good at producing rock bands, and by "rock," we mean the in-your-face, guitar-heavy, leather-clad variety — you know, the good kind. For a prime example, look no farther than BANDITS. Full Story